“While strong, these results were affected by a tough operating environment with a very significant negative currency impact of €162 million, primarily due to sterling weakness, and continued disruption due to air traffic control strikes.”

Walsh added: “Despite this, our unit revenue performance was better than in quarter two and our quarterly profit after tax was €970 million before exceptional items, an improvement of 9.9 per cent on last year.

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“In the nine months, we made an operating profit before exceptional items of €1,915 million, up 6.1 per cent versus last year.
Non-fuel unit costs before exceptional items at IAG for the quarter were down 6.9 per cent and at constant currency up 1.4 per cent.

Walsh continued: “We’re pleased to announce an interim dividend payment of 11 cents per share, a ten per cent increase on last year.

“As in 2015, we expect the interim dividend to be around half the full year dividend.”

At current fuel prices and exchange rates, IAG expects its operating profit for 2016 to be around €2.5 billion, and has seen no significant change in its short-term trading conditions.